Forgery in Louisiana: Acts, Penalties, and Defenses

Forgery charges in Louisiana are felony charges. A conviction under Louisiana Revised Statute 14:72 carries up to ten years in prison, with or without hard labor, and a fine of up to $5,000.¹ The statute reaches far beyond faking a signature on a check, and prosecutors often pair it with related fraud charges that carry heavier penalties than forgery itself. What the state has to prove, what documents count, and what else can be charged alongside it all shape how a case actually plays out.

What the State Has to Prove

Every forgery prosecution turns on one mental state: intent to defraud. The state must show you acted with the specific goal of cheating someone out of money, property, or legal rights.¹ An honest mistake, a sloppy signature, or signing someone else’s name with their permission does not meet the threshold. Prosecutors typically build intent through circumstantial evidence: attempts to cash a suspicious check, efforts to hide the alteration, or a pattern of similar transactions that rules out an innocent explanation.

The second element is the document itself. Louisiana law requires a “writing purporting to have legal efficacy,” meaning a document that carries legal weight. A doodle on a napkin does not qualify. A check, contract, deed, or government-issued ID does.

The Acts That Count as Forgery

You do not have to create a fake document from scratch to be charged. Louisiana recognizes several distinct acts:¹

Creating a writing that falsely appears to be someone else’s act when that person never authorized it.
Altering a genuine document so it reflects different terms, amounts, dates, or place of execution.
Presenting something as a copy of an original when no such original ever existed.
Uttering a forged writing: passing, publishing, or transferring a document you know is forged. You can face charges for trying to cash a fake check even if someone else made it.
Possessing a forged writing with intent to defraud, even if you never try to use it.

That last point catches people off guard. A person carrying multiple forged checks in a wallet can be charged based on possession alone, provided the state proves they knew the documents were fake and intended to use them fraudulently.

What Counts as a “Writing”

The definition is deliberately broad. It covers three categories:¹

Printed or recorded information: checks, contracts, wills, deeds, court filings, birth certificates, and academic transcripts.
Physical instruments of value: money, coins, tokens, stamps, seals, credit cards, badges, and trademarks.
Symbols of value, right, privilege, or identification, a catch-all covering items like security badges, membership cards, or credentials representing that the holder has a particular right or status.

Penalties

The maximum sentence under RS 14:72 is ten years in prison, with or without hard labor, and a fine of up to $5,000. The court can impose prison time and a fine together, and there is no mandatory minimum, so the judge has wide discretion.¹

The forgery statute does not mandate restitution, but Louisiana’s general sentencing provisions allow the court to order repayment for a victim’s financial losses. Judges frequently add restitution to forgery sentences, particularly when a victim lost money through a forged check or fraudulent contract.

How Long the State Has to File Charges

Because forgery is punishable “with or without hard labor,” it is not necessarily punishable by hard labor, which places it under a four-year prescriptive period.² The clock runs from when the offense was committed, not from when it was discovered. Once four years pass without charges filed, the prosecution is barred.

One caveat matters: related offenses like bank fraud or federal document offenses may have different limitation periods, so an old forgery can still surface through a separately charged crime.

Related Charges Prosecutors Often Add

Forgery rarely stands alone on the charging document. Several related statutes carry heavier penalties or mandatory minimums the base forgery statute does not.

Monetary Instrument Abuse

Counterfeiting or forging a check, money order, certificate of deposit, or similar financial document under RS 14:72.2 carries a mandatory minimum of six months in prison and a minimum fine of $5,000, with a maximum of ten years and $1,000,000.³ Possession of tools designed for making counterfeit instruments is also covered. A second conviction raises the mandatory minimum to one year, and restitution is mandatory.

Bank Fraud

When forgery targets a financial institution, prosecutors may charge bank fraud under RS 14:71.1 instead of or alongside forgery. Bank fraud carries up to ten years in prison, a fine of up to $100,000, and mandatory restitution.⁴ A second conviction triggers a one-year mandatory minimum.

Identity Theft

Forging documents that involve another person’s identifying information can support an identity theft charge under RS 14:67.16. Penalties are tiered by the value obtained:⁵

$1,000 or more: up to ten years and a $10,000 fine.
$500 to $999: up to five years and a $5,000 fine.
$300 to $499: up to three years and a $3,000 fine.
Under $300: up to six months and a $500 fine.

Penalties increase when the victim is over 60, has a disability, or is under 17. A third identity theft conviction carries up to ten years regardless of the amount involved.

Access Device Fraud

Forging or misusing credit card numbers, account information, or digital signatures can lead to access device fraud charges under RS 14:70.4. Penalties scale with the value obtained and reach up to twenty years and a $50,000 fine when the amount exceeds $25,000.⁶ The court must order restitution on top of any prison sentence.

When Forgery Becomes a Federal Case

Certain conduct pulls the case into federal court, where penalties climb sharply. Forging U.S. currency, treasury bonds, or other government securities violates 18 U.S.C. § 471 and carries up to twenty years in federal prison.⁷

Forging a passport carries up to ten years for a first or second offense under 18 U.S.C. § 1543, but the sentence rises to twenty years if the forgery facilitated drug trafficking and twenty-five years if it facilitated international terrorism.⁸ Similar penalties apply to forged visas and permanent resident cards.

Common Defenses

Because intent to defraud is the core of every forgery case, most successful defenses attack that element. If you did not know a document was forged, you lacked the mental state the statute requires. This defense comes up frequently in uttering cases, where the person passing a forged check received it from someone else and had no reason to suspect it was fake.

Authorization is another strong defense. Signing someone else’s name with their knowledge and consent is not forgery, because the writing does not falsely “purport to be the act of another who did not authorize that act.”¹ Power of attorney arrangements, joint account holders, and business signing authority all create fact patterns where an apparent forgery turns out to be fully authorized.

Challenging the document’s legal significance can also work. The statute requires a “writing purporting to have legal efficacy.” If the altered document has no legal weight and could not have been used to obtain anything of value, the forgery element is not met. This defense is narrow but occasionally applies to informal writings that prosecutors overcharge.

Consequences Beyond the Sentence

A felony forgery conviction reaches into several parts of life long after any prison time is served.

Firearms

Federal law prohibits anyone convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison from possessing firearms or ammunition.⁹ Because Louisiana forgery carries up to ten years, a conviction triggers a federal firearms ban unless rights are formally restored.

Voting

Louisiana strips voting rights during incarceration, probation, and parole. Restoration is possible after completing the sentence, or, if still on probation or parole, after five consecutive years without incarceration.

Employment and Licensing

A felony forgery conviction creates serious obstacles for jobs involving financial responsibility, government security clearances, or professional licenses. Because forgery is a crime of dishonesty, licensing boards in law, accounting, banking, and real estate treat it as particularly disqualifying.

Expungement

Louisiana allows expungement of forgery convictions under limited conditions. The most common path requires that ten years have passed since you completed your entire sentence, including probation or parole, with no other convictions or pending charges during that window.¹⁰ You must obtain a certification from the district attorney confirming the clean record before filing the motion.

An earlier path exists if the conviction was set aside under a deferred adjudication arrangement, or if you qualify for a first offender pardon under the Louisiana Constitution. Forgery is not classified as a crime of violence, so it is not excluded from the first offender pardon pathway. Expungement does not erase the conviction from every record, but it removes it from public background checks, which significantly improves employment prospects.

1
Louisiana State Legislature. Louisiana Code 14:72 – Forgery
2
Louisiana State Legislature. Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure 572 – Limitations
3
Louisiana State Legislature. Louisiana Code 14:72.2 – Monetary Instrument Abuse
4
Louisiana State Legislature. Louisiana Code 14:71.1 – Bank Fraud
5
Louisiana State Legislature. Louisiana Code 14:67.16 – Identity Theft
6
Louisiana State Legislature. Louisiana Code 14:70.4 – Access Device Fraud
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 471 – Obligations or Securities of United States
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1543 – Forgery or False Use of Passport
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 922 – Unlawful Acts
10
Louisiana State Legislature. Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure 978 – Expungement